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‘I don’t find it in the least mournful to be an aunt!’ Norah laughed. ‘All this talk about frustrated maternity amuses me. Some of the jolliest people I’ve ever known have been aunts.—It all depends, like everything else, on whether you have any money of your own.’

The clue was given into her hand and Monica heard her own voice saying: ‘Speaking of aunts, hadn’t you a rather wonderful one in your family?—An old Aunt Harriet Beaton? This picture isn’t of her by any chance?—I was hearing about her the other day.” She had stopped before a faint pencil drawing of an old lady in a cap.

‘Well—how did you hear of Aunt Harriet!’ said Norah, and Monica’s heart gave a great throb as she heard her—whether of hope or fear she did not know: ‘No; that’s not she. I’ve no picture of Aunt Harriet. She was rather wonderful; but her name was Allington, not Beaton; we have no Beatons in the family. Mother used to tell us stories about her. She travelled all over the world and made botanical paintings of flowers in every quarter of the globe. Mother has portfolios full of them.’

Monica heard her own weak voice again. ‘A great traveller?—Perhaps your uncle inherits the taste from her. Yes; that is she. I muddled the